BRITEST - Key Persons
With past experience including looking after the world's most challenging and demanding celebrities during their stays in some of the country's most exclusive hotels, Emma is more than capable of providing the VIP experience that Britest's clients deserve.
Whether managing events large and small, or coordinating and working with people from a whole range of nationalities and backgrounds, Emma's focus - learned from the best at Walt Disney World in Florida - is always on delivering fantastic customer service. Describing herself as, "Bossy enough to get the job done efficiently, but friendly enough for others to know that I'm always doing it with a smile!" Emma is never happier than when helping out and working with others. She combines the ability to keep calm in a crisis with a genuine love of people.
Emma's role takes in all aspects of administrative and financial support for the Britest team, Board, committees, collaborative projects, and anything else that involves getting the right people to the right place, at the right time, with the right stuff!
Emma's organisational skills and tireless commitment to customer satisfaction, acquired in the demanding environment of world class hospitality provision, are put to work ensuring that Britest's events, meetings, and training go without a hitch. If you need it, Emma can sort it.
James is a technical / process manager with 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical sectors.
With a PhD in organic chemistry, James has worked for larger multi-national companies (Veranova, Johnson Matthey, Shasun and Rhodia) and smaller innovative companies (Phoenix Chemicals and Bhaku Pharma); primarily in technical support of manufacturing. His key strengths include his technical ability and innovative problem solving with a thorough, but flexible approach.
James' experience covers technology transfer and new product introduction, manufacturing technical support, cGMP operations, batch and continuous processing, process deviation investigations and troubleshooting, process development, process engineering, project management and safety, health and environmental management. He has served as lead technical contact with customers during technology transfer projects and has been an integral member of company teams for regulatory and customer audits.
A keen swimmer, James also enjoys walking, sourdough bread making and some (amateur) carpentry in his spare time.
An organic chemist by training, James has a vast practical knowledge of manufacturing in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical sectors including; batch and continuous process development and troubleshooting; process engineering; and safety, health and environmental management.
An experienced industrial chemist, consultant and trainer, equally fascinated by people and processes, John brings bring a personable and flexible approach to technical facilitation and communication on behalf of collaborative projects across the Britest network.
John brings a strong combination of technical and communications skills to his role at Britest, acquired in a diverse career in industrial R&D, management, training, and knowledge transfer.
John holds a 1st Class Honours Degree in Applied Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde, and a PhD in Polymer Science from the University of Durham, and is a Chartered Chemist. After a decade spent managing all aspects of product and process R&D for Chemdal (later BASF) polyacrylate superabsorbents (including international process and product transfer, and technical representation to major clients) John decided to branch out, sharing his enthusiasm for statistical analysis and experimental design in process improvement as a trainer and consultant with S4i Limited, during which time he acquired Six Sigma Master Black Belt status.
As a Project Manager with C-Tech Innovation Limited, John worked extensively in the UK/EU collaborative innovation environment, playing a prominent role in the delivery and community management of the UK's Faraday Partnership and Knowledge Transfer Networks in Resource Efficiency and Sustainability,. His most treasured social media recommendation described him as having "...a brain the size of a planet, yet the skills of a silver-tongued cavalier," neither of which is exactly true.
John works as a Britest Technical Facilitator helping clients and collaborators interrogate their process understanding for actionable insight, and also looks after all aspects of Britest's communications activities, supporting the effective dissemination and deployment of Britest tools and methodologies into user organisations, identifying themes emerging from innovation projects and working with colleagues to turn them into dissemination, education and training materials for relevant target audiences, He is currently work package leader for dissemination and communications in the Horizon Europe ETERNAL project and an active contributor to Britest's participation in the UK RESILIENCE Medicines Manufacturing Skills Centre of Excellence.
Kirk is passionate about innovation and collaborative R&D having spent his career in interdisciplinary science, and business development, at the interface of academia and industry.
Kirk joined Britest in May 2023 after a brief secondment from the University of Manchester where he was Director of Commercialisation of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and the national EPSRC / BBSRC Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub. Kirk has a PhD in organic chemistry, and extensive experience in interdisciplinary science, project management, and business development at the interface of academia and industry, across multiple sectors.
Kirk works with our member organisations, and engages more broadly with companies and academia, to apply Britest's innovation to develop safer, more productive, and sustainable processes.
The majority of his spare time is devoted to high maintenance cars and equally high maintenance children's and youth-level football teams: touchline dad, team coach, club chairman, head groundsman, you name it, Kirk is it.
Job Titles:
- Technical Services Director
A chemical engineer and Fellow Institution of Chemical Engineers, with a professional lifetime spent in design, operations and engineering research management roles, Rob knows all about the realities and pressures of driving excellence in the process industries.
Coming to Britest from a member organisation (he was most recently Engineering Research Manager at the Johnson Matthey Technology Centre, Sonning Common) Rob has first-hand experience of actively using Britest tools and methodologies to create value for process plant operations. In a career which has also taken in spells with Johnson Matthey Vertec, Synetix, and Tioxide UK Limited, Rob has frequently been involved in the development of teams in operations and research which owed their success to the attention given to capturing, exchanging and promoting process understanding.
Rob is an experienced process safety practitioner, leading many HAZOPs and other safety risk assessments and working with the regulatory authorities. He is thoroughly familiar with assessing the technical risk of introducing new processes and technologies. He also has extensive practical experience of project management in large, multidisciplinary, multinational projects and recruiting and developing teams of engineers and scientists.
Rob applies the same innate curiosity for all things scientific, astronomical and engineering that once took him a kilometre under North Yorkshire to the UK Dark Matter Research lab (housed deep within Boulby Potash mine) to developments in technical, safety and supply value chains risk assessments and other collaborative projects as part of Britest's innovation programme. He is also invariably busy developing tools and methodologies and finding new potential clients and collaborators.
With a professional lifetime spent in operations and engineering research management roles, Rob knows all about the realities of driving excellence out on the line. He is ideally qualified to help organisations define, structure and translate process knowledge and information into process understanding.